CHESHAM United hope to have gone a long way to eradicating their shortcoming in front of goal with two key signings in the last week.

Striker Ryan Laville has made an immediate impact since arriving at the end of last week and manager Andy Leese is hoping for something similar from attacking midfielder Dave Pearce, who is joining on loan from Hemel Hempstead.

Laville, formerly known as Ryan Charles, has played for Luton, Rushden & Diamonds and Newport County and in 2013 scored both goals for Hemel Hempstead in their play-off semi-final victory over Chesham.

He came off the bench in Saturday’s 1-0 home loss to Corby and hit the inside of the post near the end, before opening his Chesham account with a brace in their 3-0 victory over Slough on Monday.

Simon Thomas also netted in the victory which Leese hopes will ignite their season after a hat-trick of 1-0 losses.

He said: “We haven’t been playing that badly. We played quite well at Cambridge last week and on Saturday against Corby it was fairly even.

“Perhaps we didn’t look a threat, but we changed a couple of players and the way we attacked at Slough and it worked a treat for us.

“Defensively we’ve not been far off it and we have been creating chances.

“Last year even those half chances were being put away. I’m still backing the strikers we’ve got here but we maybe need to get more people in the box.”

That is where Pearce comes in.

He scored 17 times for Hemel last season but needs games and he’ll certainly get that during a month’s loan at The Meadow.

The first of those should come tomorrow at Dorchester, when Chesham will hope to back up their Slough victory with another three points.

Leese said: “It’s unusual for us to lose three games in a row but I can’t remember us losing three in a row and not scoring.

“So was it a relief at Slough? Of course it was.

“But we know the requirements of this league and we need to back it up now – if only for our own confidence and belief.”